Chapter 20

ABOUT JIM AND THE DUKE

It was a very different waking up the next day. My first thought was: "Can it be really true or is it only a dream that I'm engaged to Jim?" And I almost cried for joy when I was quite sure it was true.

We both wrote letters to my mother, and so did Sally. I didn't see theirs, but I could guess what they said, and I could trust Sally to praise Jim. Still, all the praises in the world wouldn't reconcile Mother to what I was going to do. I could hear her saying: "Who is he?" And I was sure she would add, "How much has he got?" But whatever happened, we were not going to give each other up.

Jim had promised Mr. Trowbridge to pronounce judgment on a horse which he thought of buying, and the man who wanted to sell the creature brought it to the farm about eleven o'clock. Sally had come, to tell about the letter she had just posted to Mother, and Jim was in the sitting room writing his. I think he had forgotten about the horse, until Mr. Trowbridge appeared, looking rather excited.

"Say, Jim," he exclaimed, "Jake Jacobsen's here with the horse. He's round by the barn now, and you might as well have a look at it; but it's an awful brute, and I ain't going to take it, at any price."

"What's the matter with the horse?" asked Jim, sealing up his letter, and looking interested.

"It's mad crazy, that's all; but it's enough for me. I thought there must be something wrong for Jake to be offering it at the price he did. He led it here, and you just ought to have seen the brute dance and make ugly eyes when first Albert and then I tried to get astride of it. Jake swears the only reason he'll sell cheap is because his wife has taken a dislike to the horse, and what she says, goes with him. He's ready to bet anything the animal's as mild as a lamb, only a bit frisky, and certainly it's as handsome a beast as I ever laid eyes on. But he'll have to get rid of it at the fair."

"I'll come," said Jim, getting up.

I jumped up too.

"Oh, please don't have anything to do with such a vicious creature," I begged. "You might be killed."

Jim laughed. "The horse isn't sired that could kill me, I reckon. I know them too well. Why, little girl, I was brought up among horses. You can trust me not to run too big risks, now I've got something to make life worth living."

Stan has often told me that men hate girls to fuss over them, so I bit my lip and didn't tease any more, but I was far from happy. I didn't like the look in his eyes.

"May Sally and I go and see the horse with you?" I meekly asked.

"I'll ride him up to the house, if I find he's worth your seeing," Jim said. "But you mustn't worry if we don't come this way for awhile. I may have to work with him a bit before he's ready to show himself off to ladies."

With that he got his hat and went out with Mr. Trowbridge, who was waiting with a twinkle in his eyes.

"Oh, dear, I feel as if something horrid was going to happen!" I said to Sally, when they had gone.

"Pooh!" said she. "I should be sorry for the animal who tried to play tricks with that young man. You'll find you haven't known him, till you see him on a horse."

"I daresay I'm silly," I admitted. "But I have a presentiment of something. Let's go and sit out on the verandah and watch. We can't see the barn, but if they come out in the farm road we shall catch sight of them."

"All right," said Sally. "The sun's hot on the verandah; but that's a detail."

Already Jim and Mr. Trowbridge had disappeared, but as we were choosing the coolest place for our chairs, we saw a dusty, nondescript old vehicle rattling up the maple avenue, and just about to turn into the narrow road which leads round the side of the house. The hood was up to protect the passengers from the sun, so at first we could see only the driver, and gather an indistinct impression that there were two figures in the back seat.

"Visitors," said I. "I didn't know Mrs. Trowbridge was expecting—" Then I broke off with a little gasp.

"Oh, Sally, it's—"

"The Duke and Katherine!" she gurgled.

All my blood raced up to my head, as if I were going to have a sunstroke.

"No wonder I had a presentiment," I groaned, forgetting my fright about the horse, for a moment. "Do stand by me."

"I will," said Sally.

Mrs. Trowbridge and the girls were busy in the kitchen, making peach jam; so when the wretched old chaise drew up close to the verandah, Sally and I were alone to receive it.

If my sense of humour hadn't been trampled upon by various emotions which were all jumping about at the same time, I should have had hard work not to laugh when Stan and Mrs. Ess Kay scrambled out from under the lumbering old hood, which was like a great coal scuttle turned over their heads. Their hair was grey with dust, their faces purple with heat, and evidently they were both in towering tempers.

Stan looked at me the way he did once when I was small and spoiled his favourite cricket bat by digging up worms with it;—as if he could have shaken me well and boxed my ears, and would if I weren't a girl. As for Mrs. Ess Kay, she smiled; but her smile meant worse things than Stan's frown.

"Hullo, dear boy," I chirped, nervously. "How do you do, Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox?"

Sally murmured something, too, and Stan had the grace to claw off his hat, showing how damp his poor hair was on his crimson forehead, but he didn't even pretend to smile.

"A nice dance you've led us," said he. "By Jove, I wouldn't have thought it of you, Betty."

"Maybe you don't understand yet," said I. "Wait till I've explained, and I'm sure you won't be cross, because you always were a dear."

"It's no good wheedling," he grumbled. "I'm not going to wait for anything. We've come to take you home, and the quicker you pack up and get ready the better."

"What do you mean by home?" I enquired.

"To Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox's house in New York, where she says she'll be good enough to put us up till the next decent ship sails for England."

"I'm not going back to Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox's," said I. "She knows why it's impossible."

"Rot," said Stan. "She's jolly kind to have you, after the way you've acted. Anybody'd think you were eight, instead of eighteen. You deserve to be put on bread and water for making me come three thousand miles to fetch you home."

"I didn't ask you to come," said I, "and you needn't have bothered. Is Vic engaged yet?"

"Yes, she is; the day before I started. What's that got to do with it?"

"A good deal, according to her," I replied. "I'm engaged, too."

"The dickens you are!" exclaimed Stan, getting redder than ever, while Mrs. Ess Kay gave a little start and glared at Sally.

My blood was up now, and I didn't care what I said. The sooner Stan knew everything just as it was, the better.

"Yes, the dickens I am," I echoed, defiantly, "and I don't intend to be treated like a naughty child, by anyone. I've done nothing wrong, or underhand. We've only been engaged since yesterday, though we both fell in love at first sight on shipboard, and we've written to mother and you, this very morning."

"Engaged to a man you met on shipboard!" repeated Stan, looking flabbergasted, and turning from me to Mrs. Ess Kay.

"Tom Doremus!" she gasped. "Yet no, that's impossible. He's in Newport. But there was no one else. I was particularly careful."

"I am engaged to marry Mr. James Brett," I said. "He is—"

"There was no such man on the ship," she broke in, sharply.

Then, suddenly, she almost jumped.

"Goodness gracious!" she exclaimed. "Oh, Duke, this is too awful. I remember there was a person in the steerage. But this is madness. It can't be—"

"He did cross in the steerage," I said. "What of it? He is the best, and handsomest man I ever saw, and there's no finer gentleman than he; you can ask Sally if there is, for she knows him."

"And thoroughly approves of him," Sally finished, taking my hand. "Duke, I assure you Betty is to be congratulated. I understand that the Duchess was not averse to her marrying an American, and the one she has chosen is of the very best type."

"I beg your pardon, Miss Woodburn, but hang the type," said Stan, who never did get on with Sally. "It's absolutely impossible that my sister should marry such a person, and you ought to have known better than to encourage her. This is a hundred times worse than I thought when I flung up the best shoot of the season to come and fetch you, Betty. You and I were always by way of being pals, but I agree with the Mater now; you've behaved disgracefully, and as for the man, whoever he is—"

"Here he comes to speak for himself," cut in Sally, squeezing my hand hard.

There was a sound in the distance; voices shouting, but not the voice I loved. We all looked, and a black horse with a man on his back sprang into sight, like a rocket gone wrong. It was Jim, looking more beautiful than any picture of a man ever painted, his face transported with the joy of battle and triumph, and that fiend in horse shape under him doing all he knew to kill.

It was a terrible and yet a splendid thing to see, that struggle. I hadn't known how I adored Jim, and how I admired him, till I saw him with that smile on his face, sitting the black devil as if he were one with him in spite of the brute's murderous plunges.

The two shot past the house like a streak of lightning, then wheeled back again, the horse clearing a ditch and a five-barred fence from one meadow into another; but he didn't jump in spite of Jim; rather was it in spite of himself. Then there was a series of mad buck jumpings, leaps into the air, and downward plunges. The beast sat on his haunches, and then reared up with a great bound, to waltz on his hind legs and paw the air, snorting. But still Jim smiled and kept his seat without the least apparent effort.

"Jove! that fellow can ride," muttered Stan, taken out of himself by his man's admiration for a man.

"It's Jim Brett, my Jim Brett," I cried. "What do you think of him now?"

But it didn't occur to Stan to answer. I don't suppose he even heard; he was far too deeply absorbed in the passing drama; and in a minute more Jim and the black horse were out of sight again.

But I was not at all afraid for him now. I was only proud, and sure—as sure as I was of life—that he would conquer.

Nobody spoke. Mr. Trowbridge, and Mr. Jacobsen, the disagreeable cowbell man who owned the horse, ran by as fast as they could go, too excited to glance at the house, and Albert and Elisha followed. Mrs. Trowbridge and the girls had come out from the kitchen and were hanging over the nearest fence. Patty was whimpering a little, so I guessed all in a flash that she had cared for Jim. (But she is so sweet she will get over it now he is mine; and already I've made her realise thoroughly what a fine fellow the great Whit is.)

We stood still in our places and watched. I could hear my heart beat, and it had not time to calm down before Jim came riding back on the black horse—a changed black horse, all winning airs and graces, to cover shamed penitence now.

The creature pirouetted up the side road, and Jim stopped him at the verandah, patting the throbbing black neck. "Well? I believe I'll buy him myself," he said smiling to me; and then he saw Mrs. Ess Kay and my brother.

"By Jove, Harborough!" said Stan. "It is you, isn't it? Surely it isn't your double?"

"Harborough it is," said Jim, while I listened, dumb with wonder. "How are you, Duke? I was rather expecting you might turn up; but I cabled to you last night to Boodles', and wrote you this morning on the chance you hadn't started."

"Well, I'm blowed," remarked Stan, most inelegantly. "Are you Brett, or is Brett you, or is he somebody else?"

"My name is James Brett Harborough; perhaps you didn't know, or had forgotten," said Jim; and then, jumping off the horse and throwing the lines to Mr. Jacobsen, who had just trotted anxiously up, he came to me.

"Will you forgive me?" he asked.

"I don't know yet what it's all about," I said, dully.

"Miss Woodburn knows; and Mohunsleigh knew. You see, he and I were old pals, so I told him I was in love with his cousin, and was going to try hard to win her, in my own way. You remember Mohunsleigh's friend Harborough. You said the other day you were sorry for him, and—you wished him joy of his love affair."

"Oh, is that the reason you pretended to be only Jim Brett?"

"I am Jim Brett. But now you understand, will you forgive me?"

"I don't understand yet, except that you must have been afraid I might care more for your money than for you, if I knew. Oh, how could you think such a thing of me? But about the steerage—"

"That was beforehand. It had nothing to do with you, though everything that was to come, came from it. I was abroad for a couple of years, and a friend I knocked up against in Paris last June bet me a thousand dollars that in spite of all my queer experiences, I wouldn't have the pluck to rough it in the steerage of a big ocean liner. I took the bet, and won it. If it hadn't been for seeing you, I should have gone West almost at once after landing in New York, but I had seen you, so I stayed. Luckily for me, I'd met Miss Woodburn often in San Francisco and once here. She recognised me in my steerage get-up and was the only one who did; but her tact kept her from spoiling sport. She guessed there must be a game on, and said not a word to anyone. She wouldn't, even if I hadn't managed to send her a note, which I did. I had a conversation with her on board, too, the day before getting in, and—we talked about you. Even then I felt sure you couldn't be the sort of girl to care about money, but—"

"It was partly my fault, Betty," Sally broke in when he paused. "To be quite, quite frank, I knew that the Duchess had fallen in with some ideas of Katherine's, and I couldn't tell how far your bringing up mightn't have influenced your nature, so I encouraged Mr. Harborough to test you by keeping up the story that he was a poor young fellow named Jim Brett. It handicapped him, and kept him away from you; but you were interested in him to start with, and I did my best to keep up the romance. I thought he wouldn't lose by it in the end, and he hasn't. There was the morning in the Park; I managed that; and I got Katherine to send him an invitation to her big party. He was playing a waiting game, because he wanted you to care in spite of every drawback, or else he wouldn't want you to care at all; and then, before he was ready for any coup, Fate stepped in and did the rest."

"In the best way it could have been done, I think," said Jim. "Now, little girl, do you understand, and have you forgiven me?"

"I'd like to think you could have trusted me from the very first, without playing at all," I answered. "Still—it is romantic, isn't it? And besides, even if I were very angry, I—I'm afraid I'd forgive you anything after seeing you ride that horse."

"I'm hanged if I couldn't, too," said Stan. And laughing, the two shook hands.

"And I suppose I shall have to, as well," purred Mrs. Ess Kay, quite kittenish, "if only somebody would introduce Mr. Harborough to me."

(As if anyone cared whether she forgave him or not!)

"What about the Duchess?" asked Sally.

"Oh, when I tell her that Betty's engaged to marry a chap I've met and liked in town—a thorough sportsman, too, it will be all right," said Stan.

I was glad he didn't refer to Jim's money, even though that is the thing which will appeal most to Mother. As for me, I am almost sorry he isn't poor, if there's room in my heart to be sorry about anything. But I don't believe there is. It's such a beautiful world, and I shall have two homes in it now; one on each side the water.